Batting Cages Are On Hold; Council Wants A Diagram
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send your username and password to you.
Summerville Council Members Fear Tennis Players Could Twist Ankle On Crevices While Playing
The city of Summerville received a $28,928 quote to install two batting cages inside a portion of its tennis courts.
Currently, the tennis courts are deteriorating at the city’s rec center off Hwy. 100. Some are playable while the two backcourts are not. Those two backcourts are being eyed for repurposing.
Rodney Bright Construction gave the quote to the city and said it was good for one week, officials said during Monday night’s regular meeting.
“We would use the fence that is already up (at the tennis courts). We will just add additional fencing to it to block off each individual cage off,” Summerville Recreation spokesman Jeff Maddux told the council on Monday.
The council tabled approving the cages until they could see a diagram of how it’s going to be laid out.
Finding a playable tennis court in Chattooga County is growing harder and now Summerville wants to turn a portion of its courts into batting and pitching cages.
Summerville Recreation Director Bo Chamlee says the surface of the tennis courts is cracking once again. It’s been less than three years since the city resurfaced them.
“Even the people that put it in, they didn’t even know how long they would last,” Chamlee said. “The foundation on those courts isn’t any good. . . It’s slowing cracking again.”
The city paid $24,200 to resurface three of its five courts off Hwy. 100.
Now city officials are pondering whether to turn the courts into one pitching and two batting cages, according to Chamlee.
Chattooga educators also want to build at least six courts at the high school. The prices, however, have been too high, according to Superintendent Jared Hosmer.
The first round of bids arrived at about $1 million. Several months later the project was resubmitted to contractors and once again it was too high, Supt. Hosmer said. The price was between $1.25-$1.5 million.
“Right now we are just on hold. The bids were higher the second time. We’ll revisit it again sometime in the future,” Hosmer said.
Currently the school system is working on several expensive projects, one of which is a new multi-million dollar Menlo Elementary School. Between the school, replacing lights at the high school football field and re-roofing the Summerville Middle School, Hosmer said educators felt the need to delay spending more on tennis.
This move, however, results in the high school’s tennis teams having to use tennis courts in Floyd County.
“They can practice down there (in Summerville) but they can’t have actual matches. They have to have five courts to play on,” Chamlee said.
Chamlee says he doesn’t want to see the tennis courts disappear like when the city closed and filled in its public swimming pool.
“I really feel like we need them. We need it for the community,” Chamlee said. “I wished (the city) would have built them years back when we had plenty of money.”
The school system wants to build courts at the high school and move away from the city’s current location.
“The reason we would like to have them on school property is because of the access to restrooms and parking,” Hosmer said.